Monster-Shaped Mountain

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When a rocky topographic feature — a mountain, hill, giant boulder, or even an outcrop at sea — plays an important role in a work of fiction, writers are prone to making its appearance unique and memorable. As few writers or viewers are geologists, saying it's made of such-and-such a type of stone can contribute little to the work, either descriptively or dramatically. Making it look like a creature, however, is sure to strike a chord with the audience.

This trope typically comes in two variants:

The geological feature looks like a tremendous creature, or part of one. Whether carved out by natural erosion or shaped by some long-ago civilization's sculptors, its resemblance sets the mood for the locale: a mountain shaped like a tiger evokes a different ambiance than one shaped like a gigantic fist, for example. Its distinctive appearance may be utilized in-story as a landmark for navigation ("Walk two miles towards the peak shaped like a horse's head..."). If it resembles a creature that is held to be sacred by the local culture, expect the terrain-feature to be considered holy as well.

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The mountain actually isa tremendous creature, one that was either made of stone to begin with or Taken for Granite. If it's dead or merely inert, it may be overgrown with vegetation; locals might even have built homes on its surface, making the possibility that it might wake up and start moving a serious concern. In cases when the creature is openly known to be alive, it will often fulfill some benign protective role for nearby inhabitants. If the Mountain is intelligent as well as living, it's a type of Genius Loci.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

In Naruto, the Land of Iron's signature landmark is the Three Wolves, a mountain that is shaped like 3 wolves' heads.

Comic Books

In The Incredible Hulk #261 Hulk battles the Absorbing Man on Easter Island. The Absorbing Man absorbs the Earth itself, but then Hulk bashes him into the sea, where he becomes a small, man-shaped island.

In some Marvel stories featuring The Mole and Monster Island, the mountain that leads to his underground lair resembles a monstrous face (complete with Cave Mouth).

In the later series of ElfQuest, Ember's tribe settles at Howling Rock, which is shaped like a baying wolf's head.

One of the more bizarre sequences in Superman:For Tomorrow involves Superman fighting Mount Rushmore. Not onit, but the actual mountain given a body with the presidents' four heads.

In the Superlópez story All Against One, One Against All, the Big Bad's secret lair is revealed to be a skull-shaped island. Complete with Cave Mouth. Right off the shore of a local beach. So of course the Supergroup fail to get the clue and waste their time horsing around on the beach while the Big Bad prepares to engage them.

Films — Animation

The Cave of Souls from The Book of Life, which is not so much just a mountain. Its shaped like the Coatlicue stone idol, Precolumbian goddess of life and dead. When approached, it comes to life as a Judgement entity.

In The Land Before Time, "the rock that looks like a Longneck" is one of the landmarks that Littlefoot's mother teaches him to look for on the way to the Great Valley. There is also Three-Horn Rock, a mountain that resembles a Triceratops.

In the Pedro segment of Saludos Amigos, Mt. Aconcagua is portrayed as a scary, human-faced monster.

In the Cars films, a number of mountains and rock formations resemble automobiles or parts of them. This counts as this trope, as all self-propelled vehicles in this Verse are living creatures.

Some of the offshore rocks near the village of Berk in How to Train Your Dragon are carved into the shapes of fierce Vikings. They can be clearly seen during Hiccup's and Astrid's first flight, with bonfires blazing in their open mouths.

One of the worlds that the sea troll from The Colour of Magic observed while drifting through space was actually a continent-sized sleeping dragon, its mountain-sized spinal ridges capped with snow.

In The Light Fantastic, Rincewind and the group who've captured him find themselves in a troll-shaped mountain. Then they light a fire in a convenient cave and find out it's actually a mountain-sized troll.

In Equal Rites, the Paps of Scilla, a mountain on the caravan-route from Zemphis to Ankh-Morpork, has stirred a lot of speculation about the lady in question, because it has eight peaks.

On a similar note, in Small Gods, Om directs Brutha to head towards a tall, erosion-shaped rock that looks... very unexpected, really. Apparently the wind god has a rather crude sense of humor.

Likewise, the burial mound of the King of the Elves in Lords and Ladies also looks like a person — at least, a specific part of a person — and leaves Nanny Ogg curious to see if it is to scale.

In a small-scale example from Carpe Jugulum, a limestone formation in the shape of a witch sits near the entrance to a cave beyond the gnarly ground.

Dzur Mountain is one of the major locations in the series, and is shaped like the ferocious feline it's named for.

Adrilankha's name, according to Paarfi, was derived from how the cliffs on either side of the city's harbor resembled a bird's outspread wings. Subverted when one of the "wings" collapsed into the sea during Adron's Disaster.

A character in one of the Paarfi novels references an outcropping shaped like a hawk's beak while giving some travelers directions.

The Chronicles of Prydain novel The High King. Mount Dragon was so named because its peak was in the rough shape of a monstrous, crested dragon's head with gaping jaws, and on either side the lower slopes spread like outflung wings.

In Andre Norton's Storm Over Warlock, Shann Lantee first dreams of, and then sees, a mountain like an enormous skull. Winged creatures fly into and out of its eyeholes.

In "The White People" by Arthur Machen, the young girl's diary describes her wandering among strange stones that look like faces, weird creeping animals "putting out their tongues", and dead people lying on the ground.

Some versions of And Then There Were None that use the "Ten Little Indians" version of the rhyme also refer to the setting as "Indian Island", and depict one of its rocky cliffs as resembling an elderly Native American's profile.

In Michael Reaves' The Shattered World, one of the Floating Continent fragments is carved into the shape of a robed wizard. In the sequel, The Burning Realm, a mountain on Tamboriyan resembles a regal woman on a throne, although it's unclear if it was carved that way or if it's natural.

Jackelian Series: Coppertracks captures photos of a gargantuan stone face on the neighboring planet of Kaliban. It turns out to be a former energy-collecting facility from the fallen Kal civilization.

In Daniel Pinkwater's The Worms of Kukumlima, the adventurers are given cryptic instructions to "look for the Elephant Gate". They eventually find it in the form of a rock arch shaped like a giant elephant, which is the only entrance into the Lost World of Kukumlima crater.

Live-Action TV

When Sesame Street visited Hawaii, Big Bird spent a lot of time looking for Mount Snuffleupagus; a mountain shaped like, well, a Snuffleupagus.

In the 1998 miniseries Merlin, the Rock of Ages is a sentient mountain resembling a man lying half-buried in the ground. Merlin asks it to hold Excalibur until a worthy wielder appears.

Doctor Who: In the Fourth Doctor episode "The Face of Evil", a gigantic carving of the Evil One's head is what taught the Sevateem what this terrifying villain looks like. Too bad for the Doctor that it had the face of Tom Baker...

There's a traditional belief among the people of Timor that their home island is actually a giant stone crocodile, its back protruding from the water.

Pinballs

The backglass for Seawitch depicts a skull-shaped mountain in the background.

Radio

In the Jungle Opera story Moon Over Africa, the adventurers encounter a giant rock shaped like a rhino's head, which their magical talking head guide indicates is worth exploring for its mysteries and possible connection to Atlantis. The party approaches it, but see signs indicating that the rock is a sacred, mystical site for a Cannibal Tribe, who capture them before they can properly explore the rock.

Tabletop Games

The card Hamletback Goliath from Magic: The Gathering is given to be this. The card art depicts a couple of goblins living on the Goliath's back, and plant growth that makes it look like a mountain.

In the Champions scenario The Sands of Time, the PCs are dropped in an extradimensional realm with nonhuman inhabitants  and yet theres a mountain carved into the shape of a human face. Subsequently, they encounter a person with that face; the arch-villain who is responsible for the whole plot.

In the adventure "Neither Man Nor Beast", the beach where the player characters become marooned on Markovia is covered with giant stone figures buried waist-deep in the sand or just offshore.

Graben Island is shaped like a three-clawed monstrous hand.

The entrance to the infamous Tomb of Horrors adventure is through one of the openings in a skull-shaped cliff.

The Dragonlance campaign setting has Skullcap, cranium-shaped site of a long-ago evil wizard's stronghold, and the cover of the module Dragons of Light features a huge dragon statue carved out of a mountaintop.

A short adventure from Dungeon magazine was located at the site where a huge dragon and the flying ship it'd attacked had crashed into a pool of lava. Several of the caverns in the resulting dungeon were shaped like dragon-parts, as the lava had congealed around its skull, limbs, ribcage and tail.

The Draconomicon supplement reveals that this is how a dragon can die - rather than suddenly succumbing to the centuries, a dragon can choose to consume its hoard and undertake a ritual that allows it to merge with the landscape. The resulting hills or lakes are typically shaped like a dragon head or footprint, and are ideal nesting sites for future generations, as eggs laid there are magically hidden from danger, while wyrmlings can commune with the departed dragon's spirit for guidance.

Eberron campaign setting. The "Dragons of Eberron" supplement has a mountain in Sarlona that closely resembles a giant dragon's head, although without being recognisable as any specific breed of dragon. The dragons themselves believe it to be proof that the progenitor wyrms exist and that Eberron really is made of an ancient dragon.

Old-time solo adventure module "UK5: Eye of the Serpent" gets its title from this trope: from the top of the mountain where the adventure begins, a river that runs down to a small lake with a single island looks like a snake. There's also a cave in the adventure in which dripping mineral deposits have encased a long-ago hunter's dead body, creating a humanoid-shaped limestone formation.

Third-party planar adventure sourcebook Beyond Countless Doorways includes the realm of Palpatur, a former Genius Loci world that was traumatized when warring demons and devils turned it into a battlefield, devastating the landscape. The sentient world's resultant anguish caused gargantuan, pain-wracked faces to erupt from the ground, and these mountain-sized faces still remain there, even after Palpatur sank into a coma.

In Glorantha, the primary setting of RuneQuest, True Dragons are a part of the landscape of the world, forming several major mountain ranges. Even the smallest known True Dragon is dozens of miles long. Most of them are asleep, while their spirits wander in other planes, but one in the vicinity of Kralorela acts as a guardian deity of sorts for the nation, occasionally communicating with their Emperor, who is a human with a dragon's soul.

Disney's California Adventure theme park has Grizzly Peak, shaped like a bear's head. It was originally the park's signature landmark, though that honor has since gone to the Carthay Circle Theatre.

Video Games

Child of Light has the sentient variant in Magna, a giant on whose back reside the Bolmus Populi. The Populi are a race of travelling merchants, whose business thrives thanks to Magna's provision of transportation.

In the casual game Drawn: Trail of Shadows, one of the painted worlds is home to a mountain-sized stone giant with huts built on its shoulders. Events in-game have saddened it, so a slender waterfall of tears streams from its gargantuan eye.

In Icewind Dale, the dungeon of Dragon's Eye is much in the shape of a dragon's head, hence the name.

In the fourth Azada casual game, a path leads up a hill shaped like a giant canine.

In The Lost Crown, Saxton folklore holds that the jagged rocks along the shoreline are spines on the back of Grindle, a dragon from local legend.

Parodied in The Curse of Monkey Island, where "Skull Island" turns out to have a prominent mountain that's clearly in the shape of a duck. When the ferryman claims it looks like a skull if you squint at it and tilt your head sideways, Guybrush points out that just makes it look like a bunny instead.

One of the zones in the City of Villains expansion to the defunct MMORPG City of Heroes, is named Cap au Diable (literally, "the devil's headland"). It's overlooked by two curved mountains that resemble a devil's horns.

Chicken Ridge from The White Wolf of Icicle Creek looks just like you'd expect from the name, at least when it's covered in snow. In The Creature of Kapu Cave, 3 Finger Rock actually does look like a trio of human digits ... although such stubby ones, they might better have called it 3 Toe Rock.

Pokémon Snap has two of these: a rock formation in the shape of a Kingler in the Beach stage, and a Dugtrio-shaped mountain range in the Valley stage. These are two of the Pokémon signs present in the game: photographing them is essential to reach the secret final stage.

In an episode of The Magic School Bus about erosion, the class's trip along a mountainside triggered a series of rockfalls and stream-diversions that re-shaped the terrain to resemble a human figure.

The Adventure Time episode "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain", in which the titular mountain is living, has a face, and cries boulders. A female mountain, also with a living face at its peak, appears as well.

Snake Mountain in the He-Man franchise; in the 2002 series, it was eventually revealed to actually be a giant snake frozen in place when King Hiss and the Snake Men take over.

Birdman episode "Wings of FEAR''. FEAR's secret base is inside a mountain called Death's Head Peak which has a giant skull at the apex.

In the Pixar Short Lava, an old volcanic island and the new island that's about to emerge from the depths both have human-like faces, and sing to one another.

Real Life

Several actual terrain features, such as Mount Carmel in Connecticut or the mesas at Sibley Peninsula in Ontario, are nicknamed "Sleeping Giant" for their resemblance to a prone human figure.

The "Old Man of the Mountain" was a granite feature in the White Mountains of New Hampshire which, until the formation collapsed in 2003, resembled a human profile.

A photo from the Viking probe which went to Mars in the 1970s showed a feature in the Cydonia region which looked eerily like a human face, and was the object of a lot of Ancient Astronauts speculation, including a popular book on the subject. More recent photography of the area by probes showed a more mundane geological image, and that the face seen in the original was probably a coincidence caused by shadows.

Catalina Island, which is off the coast of California, has a mountain called Lion's Head near the harbor to Cherry Valley. Naturally, its face resembles that of a Panthera leo.

Hong Kong has a mountain range, where one of the peaks is a bare exposed rock that bears resemblance to a crouching lion, especially when viewed from the East Kowloon districts south of the mountain. In English it is known as the Lion Rock, but in written Chinese and spoken Cantonese, it is translated literally to "Lion Mountain".

Malibu, also in California, has a mountain resembling a gorilla's head. Amusingly, it's nearby where Planet of the Apes was filmed.

Germany has the Sleeping Witch◊ as well as the less spectacularly shaped Sleeping Goddess.

The extinct volcano Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh resembles a lion couchant when viewed from the west; accordingly, two of the old volcano's main vents are named the Lion's Head and the Lion's Haunch.

The summit of Helm Crag near Grasmere, England, is known as The Lion and the Lamb, because that is what it is said to look like from some angles. Also known as The Old Woman Playing the Organ when seen from a different angle. Up close the rock formation is called the Howitzer. Helm Crag is a popular short walk from Grasmere village but despite its modest height even by English standards (405 metres) many more people have set off up its slopes than have stood on the actual summit.

The Wain Stones on Bleaklow near Manchester, England, are also known as the Kissing Stones or The Kiss.

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